Commentary Currently, at least 22 states have legislation pending that would forbid the teaching of critical race theory (CRT) in K-12 public schools. Six states—Arizona, Idaho, Iowa, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas—have turned those bills into law. That—plus a grassroots uprising of parents against indoctrinating youngsters with the idea that “systemic racism” is baked into all American institutions—has caused panic among the progressive academics and their media allies for whom CRT seemed to be the next big pedagogical thing. Only yesterday—two years ago in August 2019, to be exact—the “1619 Project,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning brainchild of the New York Times holding that America’s true founding occurred when a slave ship landed in Virginia during the early 17th century, was being incorporated into high-school curricula in major cities such as Chicago and Washington, D.C. Now—well, the same academics and journalists are scrambling to come up with rationalizations for why CRT should continue …